NP: Beck, Midnite Vultures (CD)

Watching the current histrionics over pre-war intelligence, it sorta came to me that the GOP and the Bushies have a really obvious way out. It would innoculate both the White House and the CIA, as well as gird the party for an eventual post-Dubya future. Unless, of course, they run the table so hard in 2004 that they change the Constitution to allow more than two terms. Which, sadly, isn't even out of the question.

Normally, I'd hesitate to give any ammo to anyone so willing to shoot, but this seems so obvious that even Karl Rove may have already thought of it.

Blame Dick Cheney.

Everything I'm reading portrays the dual notions that the White House doesn't want to take responsibility, but at the same time, admitting any kind of "scandal" in the spook house could be equally damaging to Dubya's political career. Booting the veep solves both problems, admittedly in part because the electorate at large is too stupid to even draw a causal line between the Oval Office and the much ballyhooed undisclosed location. There's a reason Bush was in the air and Cheney was underground after 9/11 happened, don'tcha think? And is there any reason to believe Cheney couldn't continue to run the show from behind the scenes, even without the cool business cards and stationery?

Anyway, the other thing this affords is the chance to annoint a successor for the 2008 election in the event that Bush does crush the Dems in 2004, as running from the vice-presidency gives tremendous advantage toward winning. Just ask Al Gore, who did it in 2000.

What disturbs me most about this scenario, aside from everything, is that it exposes New York Times harpy Maureen Dowd as a GOP mole, since she's one of the first I've seen to suggest this course of action. Aaron Sorkin's gonna be pissed when he finds out.

On the other side of the fence, lots of hubbub about MoveOn.org and the Super Bowl this week. Seeing as how I don't particularly give a rat's ass about football, and MoveOn got on my shit list when they swore they'd only opt me in on FCC expansion topics, then hit me up to stop Schwarzenegger's election, it would be easy for me to ignore this story.

Alas, no such luck. I never watched any of the finalists for MoveOn's little contest, but going the Hitler route just seems absolutely absurd on its face. Of course, with the news of the week, you have to imagine the eventual Democratic nominee can get a lot of mileage out of original source material.

First, you show Bush "implying" ties between Iraq and al Queda, then show him explicitly stating there were no ties. Show Bush emphasizing Iraq's stockpiles of biological weapons, then David Kay's recent testimony. If you've got Dubya on tape with the cost of the Medicare bill, cross that with the actual costs that came out this week. For shits and grins, add him plugging the economy on the day we only added 1,000 jobs. Very little of this is spun data, although my cousin Michael disagrees on that last one, but I'd respond that by asking where that 6 to 7, maybe 8 percent growth in Q4 went.

The point being, Bush is often proven to be flat-out wrong, and sometimes within the confines of his own speeches and comments. That he gets away with it is the thing that both infuriates and depresses me the most. Which is sort of ironic, considering how often I think about trying to make piles of money by taking advantage of the emphatically stupid and gullible. The difference is, my conscience kicks in and I don't follow through. At the end of the day, that's a pretty unfortunate distinction to make between one's self and the people running the country.